Fleming Is In. Miguez Is Coming Soon. Skrmetta Waits In The Wings. Cassidy Is Cooked.

On Friday, Bill Cassidy’s Senate re-election campaign announced they’d hauled in another little mountain of filthy lucre to add to their war chest…

Bill Cassidy’s re-election campaign has announced Louisiana’s Senior U-S Senator raised another one-million dollars in the fourth quarter of 2024 and now has more than six-point-five million dollars on hand. Political analyst Bernie Pinsonat says the goal for Cassidy is ten-million dollars.

“He’s gonna have upwards of $10 million for re-election,” said Pinsonat. “Which is a lot of money to campaign on.”

Pinsonat says Cassidy is right where he should be money-wise.

“He can raise a lot of money because of his committee assignments nationally and in Louisiana.  He’s gonna need $10 million, and that’s almost minimum now for a statewide campaign.”

Pinsonat says to remember this is only for his campaign account and PAC’s connected to Cassidy can raise equal or greater amounts of money.

“So, he can have another $5 million in a PAC, which I’m sure he will have.  So, the $5 million he has right now he could have another $5 million in a PAC designated to spend money on his re-election.”

What our friend Bernie Pinsonat didn’t discuss is Cassidy’s electoral troubles which all that money can’t fix.

On Saturday, Jamie Pope had the story here at the Hayride about a little fracas at Washington Mardi Gras; specifically, that state representative Roger Wilder, who’s a substantial Cassidy critic and a likely backer of state senator Blake Miguez in next year’s GOP primary for the Senate, was denied tickets to the ball and refunded his money because Cassidy had essentially black-balled him for calling Cassidy out in an email to supporters.

That’s not the action of a confident incumbent expecting to be re-elected without difficulty. In fact, Jeff Sadow opines today that it’s the opposite – Cassidy knows that he’s cooked for re-election and is thus free to act like a jerk around his critics.

Sadow and Pinsonat would thus seem to be at odds, at least in one respect: if Cassidy knows he’s screwed, why waste all that time trying to reel in $10 million in campaign cash?

It reeks a little of dishonesty. Of course, Bill Cassidy is the guy who voted for the position that a post-presidential Trump impeachment was unconstitutional, and then a couple of days later he voted for the unconstitutional impeachment. This after running for re-election in 2020 as the Trumpiest Trump who ever Trumped. So dishonesty emanating from Louisiana’s senior senator is not an altogether shocking development.

It’s true that $10 million spent well can create obstacles to removing an unpopular incumbent. Just look at Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, who by all rights should have been sent packing from the Senate all the way back in 2010 but has managed to survive three election cycles despite being despised by her state’s voters. So perhaps Cassidy isn’t altogether without hope.

On the other hand, Sadow makes a very good point, which is that Louisiana’s federal elections will, going forward, contain closed party primaries complete with runoffs. So Bill Cassidy is going to have to find a way to get 50 percent plus one of Republican voters to back him in what’s likely going to be a somewhat crowded race.

As of right now, there appear to be three major opponents in that GOP primary either already in or on the way.

First, John Fleming has already declared for the race. Fleming has an excellent resume for the job. He’s the current state treasurer, and he’s done the right things vis-a-vis BlackRock and woke capital and the woke de-bankers, which really is about all you can expect of a treasurer at the moment relevant to running for the Senate. Fleming was also a deputy White House chief of staff in the first Trump administration, which is a good indication that he’ll get along with the president a lot better than Cassidy, and as a member of Congress from 2009-16, Fleming was part of the group of congressmen who founded the Freedom Caucus.

Fleming’s big downside is that he’s going to be 75 on Election Day next year. He’s a very well-preserved 73 right now and he’s certainly sharp, but ideally you’d like a freshman senator to be a decade or more younger.

Which Miguez brings to the table. It’s about the worst-kept secret in Louisiana that Blake is getting into this race soon. His entry has been talked about for months, and it’s now probably Louisiana’s number one political parlor conversation. The consultants and donors are lining up and if he’s not in the race by Valentine’s Day, Miguez For Senate will be a thing very shortly thereafter.

Miguez isn’t a rookie. He’s in his third term as a state legislator – two terms in the House, the second of which saw him serve as the chair of the House Republican Delegation, and he’s entering his second year as a state senator. Miguez is a member of the Louisiana Freedom Caucus, he has impeccable conservative credentials and even got to the right of Gov. Jeff Landry on budgets and taxes late last year, he’s one of the most effective and outspoken Second Amendment advocates in the state, he’s telegenic and comes off as just about the most central-casting avatar for a south Louisiana Cajun politician as you can get. The aesthetics of a Miguez campaign are formidable, but he’s more than that – as he showed in crushing a very well-funded establishment-backed opponent in a high-dollar state senate race in 2023.

And we’ll make another prediction: Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta is going to jump into the race soon as well.

Skrmetta is finishing up his third term in one of the state’s most important and yet utterly thankless jobs. He’s been the most effective conservative voice on the PSC, which regulates public utilities and deals with the most in-the-weeds issues in all of politics. We barely cover what happens at the PSC because there’s so little traffic when we do; almost everything that happens there is complex beyond the level of layman’s understanding. And Skrmetta made himself the expert on all of those issues and fought like a Viking to keep rates down and special interests – the environmental nuts and the “renewables” grifters, most specifically – from turning the PSC meetings into smash-and-grab operations.

He’s also been Trump’s campaign chair or co-chair in Louisiana in all three cycles he’s run. Like Miguez, Skrmetta has impeccable credentials. He’s going to have a good deal of support in New Orleans which would make him a credible, if not formidable, candidate in the race.

It’s impossible for Cassidy to get to 50 percent in the primary if that’s the field. He’d have to win a runoff against either Fleming, Miguez or Skrmetta. And we don’t think he could do it, because Trump would endorse any of the three against him. It’s likely Landry would also endorse the challenger. The state GOP would follow suit. And all the conservative groups nationally would also jump in for the challenger.

Cassidy had better be careful about his confirmation votes for Trump appointees, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who he definitely does not want to vote for, or else he’ll attract Elon Musk’s negative attention and should that happen his impressive $10 million-to-be campaign war chest won’t amount to much protection.

Like I said above, you can’t discount the power of incumbency when it’s done so much to save Murkowski over the years. But by any other analysis, Bill Cassidy can raise all the money he wants and it still won’t save him from the wrath of Louisiana’s Republican voters. The field is filling up, and the more crowded it gets the more likely it is that he’ll need a new job two Januaries from now.

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